Wednesday, March 6, 2019

That Freaky Weird Eye...Double-crested Cormorant at CSU Stanislaus

It is one of the most alien-like eyes in nature, in my view. I mean, sure, there's reptilian eyes with their cold emotionless stare, and goat's eyes with their horizontal slits, but nothing can quite compare to turquoise stare of a Double-crested Cormorant. I rarely get near enough to them in the wild to get closeup pictures, but there is one that lives in Warrior Lake at the campus of CSU Stanislaus, where I teach part-time. It is much more acclimated to people and so doesn't retreat as I walk by.
The Double-crested Cormorants, like all their cousins, are consummate fish hunters. Unlike most fishing birds, they dive into the water and chase their prey under the surface. To do so, they can't be overly buoyant and thus they have fewer oils in their feathers. They can get sort of waterlogged, in other words. As a consequence, they will spend a portion of their day drying off, like this one was doing when I happened by.

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